First Impressions, Final Reflections
by darklashes06
Summary: Picking up where "An Invisible Thread" left off so, spoilers! , with my own ideas along the way. Including the same characters as the show. I don't really know where this is going, so ideas are useful. Other than that, i'm going continue! :
1. Progress Is a Beginning

_Tick-tock-tick-tock-tick tick… _He rubbed his temples. They ached. Something wasn't right.

The ticking continued in a slightly askew tempo.

He loosed a groan from his lips. No wonder the damned rabbit in the Wonderland story was so pissed. His fingers tapped on the wood of his desk as he envisioned the plump, white rabbit - always frantic about being late, always worried that something indeed was very wrong. Yes, he could empathize completely. The irregular beating was going to drive him insane sooner or later, _though, _he wondered as an afterthought,_ probably sooner._

As to reaffirm his last conjecture, a knocking was heard on his door, though it seemed to be more of a faux act of formality than a real gesture- for it was opened without waiting for his consent.

He gazed up, index fingers pressed together at the slip of his mouth while the rest of his fingers were intertwined with one another. It took him a moment to realize who his visitor was.

_Mother… _She was his mother, he remembered, loosening what seemed to be a cottony feeling in his mind. _My mother, _he thought indignantly, almost as if he was scorning himself for forgetting, though his countenance did not betray his train of thought.

"I haven't heard from you in weeks," she smiled slightly, thinly, an expression formed through the years of falling in and out of sincerity, the need for it to have been so. He wondered at her sincerity. _No, _he brushed it off, _this is your Ma here. _

"I was beginning to worry," she said in the same light expression, gliding toward him and his desk in graceful, lithe steps. Her red coat, incidentally the same shade as her lips, barely moved as she did so. Strangely he barely noticed that she truly did seem worried, a little on edge.

She seemed to have grown more weary; his eyes searched for the telltale signs of weakness. Dark circles accented Angela's cheekbones, her shoulders seemed strained into an awkward position, as if she were forcing her limbs to satiate her desire to appear intimidating.

Nathan should have been worried.

Yet, all he could here is the subtle _tick-tock tick-tock _in the background. He focused his gaze past his mother wondering how to fix the nuisance at hand. Was it merely thirty seconds off, gaining more time as the mechanism went on through the hour? Perhaps more, even a minute, a minute and a half.

He listened intently, concentrating earnestly on the tempo, not directly looking at it, but trying to see the metronome in his mind, trying to picture the steady rhythm of how it , and how everything was supposed to sound.

"Nathan?" Angela asked in a slightly less light tone than before. He lifted his gaze to meet her eyes, which flickered momentarily from his gaze, a series of hues – gray, blue, brown, sometimes even green. Ever shifting, depending on the amount of light present to reflect that particular shade.

"Sorry Mom," Nathan strode over to her, lifting himself straightly from his chair to meet her. His eyes still flitted around him.

"I just haven't felt like myself lately," he replied, the tips of his mouth turned upwards at that, at the idea that she has no clue how little he has felt like himself.

He remembers feeling disoriented just this morning, right when he had awoken.

_As the monotonous beeping of his classic alarm clock, the one piece of machinery that perhaps he needed most, but also most wanted to destroy for disturbing him, chimed slightly, he groaned ever so slightly. Maybe he could get that one kid, that…_Rebel, he reminds himself, _that _

_Rebel, to turn off all of his alarm clocks for good. _

_A small grin escapes him, but his eyes remain closed, still weary with the lack of sleep. _

_Then, as he thinks of rebel, he starts grasping for a name…_Mike? Michael? It must have been Michael…with the curly hair.

No, that's impossible, _he shakes his head_, _I don't remember…_

_It was a few minutes before he felt strange ache in his mouth. He sat up slightly from his bed, at a one hundred fifty degree angle, the sheets crawling down his torso. With an expression of discomfort, he reached into his mouth- the top left corner. _

_His eyes widened suddenly. Was that…an extra tooth? _

_He grimaced as he realized that the ache showed no signs of slowing, relenting its pace. _

_Immediately, he paged his secretary, Paige Moore, a small, stout, and obedient woman, to set up an appointment with his orthodontist, Dr. Waite, who of course, was at loss for words at how a wisdom tooth could regrow itself, but nevertheless saw to it that it was removed. _

He shook his head, clearing it of the recollection, reaching in to embrace his mother, who said, "Don't be ridiculous Nathan this is a great time for you."

Her perfume was elegant, barely there, unlike the rich smell of Claire's shampoo. His stomach leapt at that. _Claire. _He did not feel himself around her lately either.

"The world's your oyster," Angela continued, patting him reassuringly on the back before releasing him from her embrace. "We've put all that nonsense behind us, the family's back together," she continued, her eyes never quite staying on his, "Come on, we're gonna be late for lunch." She concluded.

She observed his face, amusement coloring her own. "Nathan, have you heard a word I've said?" she smiled at him, reaching her arm out to straighten his shirt.

Instead of answering him as she had expected, he declined to meet her gaze. The _tick-tock-tick-tock_ was still in his mind, now at an increasing volume until it occupied the whole of his hearing.

In that moment, there was quiet, not one sound could be heard; it was as if for that one instant he was deaf. The lack of noise actually disturbed him, the silence seeming to stretch and wrap around him painfully, expanding like an elastic band, creating false creaks and echoes in his imagination. _Why is my silence noisy?_

It was a compulsion, an obligation, his responsibility to fix that noise. That cacophony. Nathan paced determinedly to his glass cabinet, to the right of his desk. Filled with little knick knacks and trinkets he had managed to collect, hadn't he?

In a careful, yet swift manner, he opened the glass cabinet. An internal sigh coursed through him.

The strange thing was… that clock…it looked like – he hesitated, reaching out to grab it, curiosity evident in his eyes, - _a snow globe._


	2. Chapter 2

_***_

As Nathan reached for the clock in his cabinet, away in New York, Claire Bennet stretched her arms behind her, and shook her long, blond hair from behind her neck, all from the comfort of her home in Costa Verde.  
She was sitting on the couch of her living room, every so often flipping through the vast schedule of TV programs in preparation to switch the channel. Claire was watching the news. All day. Every day. She would think that any parent would be happy if their child expressed interest in the daily news. But of course, for her, anything close to the realm of normality found its way to the extraordinary.

And her father's behavior was extraordinary – extraordinarily suspicious.

Whenever Noah Bennet came to visit Claire and Lyle, still wearing his signature horn rimmed glasses, he would peer into the living room at the television, or pick up the newspaper from their kitchen, immediately folding it beneath his coat. He remained living in an apartment not too far away from his family, but the close distance to his previous home was only a precaution against the various potential threats against Claire now that she had been exposed.

"Why do you watch so much TV every day, Claire?" Noah said softly to her as he held open the door to let her through the front door.

_Because I don't believe you. Because I don't believe that he could ever die. Because you've lied to me, tricked me, forced me…_

But the answer that came through her mouth as she stepped through the doorway was simply, "I watch the news."

"The news?" Noah asked her skeptically, still keeping his eyes on her as her pulled the door shut behind him.

"Yes. It changes every day, you see." ( This line _is _from Harry Potter.)

He frowned at that, many lines appearing across his forehead as he did so. Noah opened his mouth as if to say something, but then closed it, and that was the last he said of it as he pulled out the keys to his car.

***

Though Claire Bennet was still in sunny California, Peter Petrelli was preparing to fall asleep in his apartment in the Big Apple. His hair had grown remarkably unkempt in the six weeks that had passed, the six weeks that Peter had spent trying to rekindle his relationship with his brother, who did not seem the slightest bit interested in him.

Peter leaned over his sink to splash water on his face. The various drops against his skin glistened faintly in the low lighting.

As he folded his shower towel on his rack, Peter stepped on something with his foot. He glanced at the shabby tile to discern what it was, though sleep beckoned him to ignore the problem and dream.

Wearily, Peter picked up a lone paintbrush, abandoned far from where it could be of any use.

_I must have dropped it while I was rinsing the painting supplies. _

He shuffled out of the bathroom, where it became evident why he had used a paintbrush.

Upon the wooden floors, which at one point had probably appeared decent, lay thick coats of random, splattered paint – victims of the failed artists' fury.

But the artist had not failed for lack of trying. At least three canvases stood upon easels, halfway finished, though clearly forsaken. A pallet of various colors lay recklessly thrown on the checkered couch, followed closely by five more paint brushes. Ruined jeans had been cast in a corner.

As Peter turned the switch of the lamp on the end table of the couch, he came to a halt. Again, he twirled the switch. Confusion colored his features; his mouth turned downwards at the corners, his brows arched closer together.

That's when he remembered: he had taken the light bulb out.

Peter searched the mess that was his living room until he found it, innocently next to an unplugged toaster.

No power worked for him – except for flying, which he had taken from Nathan. He could not call forth Elle's electrokinesis, Ted's radioactivity, or even Isaac Mendez's ability to paint the future.

He sat down on his couch, closing his eyes as he remembered Isaac Mendez. Inevitably, his mind wandered down his memories that were of Simone. And of her death, and of how he couldn't stop it, and of Isaac, Isaac who…

Redness coursed through him.

A groan loosed from his lips, he felt a heavy lump at the back of his throat. As he raised his hand to brush the moisture from his eyes, the world in front of him went white.

** _Several hours later **_

Peter's eyelids fluttered in front of him, skittishly twitching at every attempt he made to open them fully. Finally, he was able to open his eyes completely.

Still blinking from this, Peter was shocked further to see that he was holding a paintbrush and a pallet.

He peered in front of him, then widened his eyes – eyes that were so reluctant to open earlier.

He had painted something…

he had painted something!

Excitement rippled through him, and he tore the canvas ferociously from the easel. Peter scanned the painting eagerly, analyzing it thoroughly.

In it were unmistakably Ando and Hiro. While Hiro's arm was outstretched, as if to stop Ando, a woman, who he could not identify, for her head was turned, held him firmly. From Ando's own arm was a stream of red light, being transferred into a figure he strongly suspected was himself.

So Ando was going to shock him? How? And more importantly, _how _was he able to paint this picture?


End file.
